Charles "Lafe" Todd

Charles Lafayette "Lafe" Todd was born December 9, 1911, in Dunkirk, a city on Lake Erie near the far western edge of the state of New York. His parents were Dr. Edwin Lafayette Todd, a dentist, and his wife Gretchen (Wilbur) Todd. John, his only sibling, died at the age of 1.

After obtaining his bachelor's degree, he went on to Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree. During the 1930s, his mother remarried and subsequently moved to California. During this same period, he met Elspeth Vaughan Davies, his future wife.

After reading works by people such as John Steinbeck, Todd became interested in the "Okies" who had left the Midwest during the Depression and Dust Bowl years to go to California. He decided to have a look for himself. After an article he wrote appeared in the New York Times, Todd was contacted by an official of the Library of Congress to make recordings of some of the folk songs he heard in the camps that were homes to the migrants. It was during this time he met and worked with Robert Sonkin, who made similar recordings through the federal Works Progress Administration programs of the Depression. Sonkin and Todd would continue to work together on and off until Sonkin's death in 1980.

After his time in California, Todd returned to New York, where he became a speech professor at the College of the City of New York (now CUNY).

Todd was drafted into the Army very near the start of World War II. In August of 1942, he married Davies at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Men with college educations were needed by the service. Todd became a 2nd Lieutenant in mid-1943. Todd's service assignment was in public relations work for the port of New York, where servicemen were shipping out for the European front. Later, he was involved in similar work in San Francisco.

After his discharge from the service in May 1946, Todd accepted a position in public relations for American Aid to France - a relief organization dedicated to helping the French recover from the war. Todd's hometown had begun a relationship with Dunkerque, France before World War I, so in his new position, encouraging his hometown to rekindle that relationship with its former sister city seemed natural.

During this same period, on the far eastern edge of New York on Long Island, Lieutenant Colonel Augustin "Gus" S. Hart, Jr. and several others from his hometown of Locust Valley were forming "Operation Democracy." Hart had parachuted into Ste. Mere Eglise, France on D-Day and, seeing the devastation war had brought, suggested Locust Valley adopt the French town much as Dunkirk had reached out to Dunkerque. They asked Todd to help. Soon Todd began working for OD.

In 1947, the Todds, who had no children, were divorced and Elspeth married Walter Rostow, whom she had met in 1937. Rostow would become an adviser to President Eisenhower and a special adviser on national security matters to President Johnson. When President Nixon took office, Rostow took a professorship in economics at the University of Texas at Austin where Elspeth would later become dean of the school.

Todd continued his promotion efforts for these "town affiliation" projects. In June of 1948, he was one of the organizers of a meeting in his hometown to facilitate further sister cities.

In 1949, Todd married the widow Clare Davis Powell and became the stepfather to her sons Evan and David.

In the early 1950s, he accepted a position with the United States Information Agency, part of the State Department. USIA was created in response to President Eisenhower's desire to deliver America's message of democracy abroad through any means possible. Much of the agency's work involved the Voice of America's broadcasts to countries behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1959, Todd returned to his alma mater Hamilton College as head of the speech department. In the 1970s, he convinced Alex Haley to join the faculty and it was during that period Haley wrote "Roots."

Todd remained at Hamilton until his retirement in 1977. He and his wife retired to Vero Beach, Florida, where he died on August 4, 2004. Claire passed 3 years later.